SAN JOSE
–– They weren’t expected to win anything at the start of the
year, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt just as bad when they
fell short.
One look into the teary eyes of several San Benito High football
players after their 26-12 loss to Aptos in the Central Coast
Section Division II title game at San Jose City College on Saturday
left little doubt of that.
By JIM JOHNSON
SAN JOSE –– They weren’t expected to win anything at the start of the year, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt just as bad when they fell short.
One look into the teary eyes of several San Benito High football players after their 26-12 loss to Aptos in the Central Coast Section Division II title game at San Jose City College on Saturday left little doubt of that.
Haybaler players expressed frustration that the team had not performed up to par and bemoaned a lost opportunity.
“We made a lot of mental errors – fumbles and penalties,” said Ken Romero, who plays both sides of the ball.
“In the second half, we weren’t playing as a family, as a team,” linebacker Mike Lango said. “We didn’t play Baler football.”
Despite shocking nearly everyone, with the notable exception of themselves, by advancing to the section finals to cap a season that began with low expectations from others, this was not a team that was just happy to be there. This was a team that expected to win it all and agonized over its inability to do so.
San Benito, which finished up at 9-3-1 overall, began the season as a middle-of-the-pack pick, a team that, as one San Benito assistant coach put it “no one ever thought would win anything.”
But the Balers shocked everyone by coming just three points from an undefeated season in the Tri-County Athletic League, tying North Salinas 17-17 and losing to perennial power Palma 7-6.
Then, the No. 4-seeded Balers rolled through the first two rounds of the CCS playoffs, downing Milpitas and prohibitive favorite Los Gatos to make the championship game against Aptos.
Though the No. 2-seeded Mariners were the higher-ranked team, San Benito was considered by many to be the favorite because Aptos had never won a CCS title while the Balers had made the CCS finals their personal playground in recent years – making the section championship game three straight times and winning it all in 2000.
But it wasn’t to be for the Balers this year, largely because they ran into a team just as underestimated and motivated as they were this season.
Aptos was nearly as overlooked in the Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League and was picked by many to be the third or fourth-best team in the league, behind early favorite Watsonville, perennial contender San Lorenzo Valley and upstart Santa Cruz.
But the Mariners fought their way to an undefeated league season to claim the first SCCAL title won by a team other than SLV in the past eight seasons.
And, after winning its first-round playoff game, Aptos found itself trailing North Salinas 35-14 in the second round before rallying for an improbable 38-35 victory to advance to the section finale.
Early in Friday’s game, it appeared that San Benito was poised to roll over Aptos.
After the teams exchanged roundhouses, San Benito’s offensive line began to assert its will.
Controlling the ball and the clock, the Balers ran 21 plays to Aptos’ six and took a 12-6 lead on sophomore quarterback Karson Klauer’s two-yard TD run with 10:17 left in the first half.
But the score came on the heels of a blown opportunity to take the lead for the Balers that ended on an incomplete pass at the Aptos 4. And, the failure to capitalize would come back to haunt them as the San Benito offense would never again hit paydirt.
After that, Aptos’ defense made a few adjustments and the Balers began self-destructing through penalties and turnovers.
Meanwhile, touted Aptos quarterback Bryan Van Meter began torturing the San Benito defense, which will likely be seeing Van Meter rolling right in their nightmares for weeks.
The mobile Mariner repeatedly broke containment and scrambled for gains or to pull off big plays. Van Meter’s two biggest plays came on a 24-yard pass play on which he avoided the Baler rush and found Chris Humphries in the end zone, and 15-yard scramble-and-heave to Ortega for the final score.
Romero said the Balers were ready for Van Meter’s ad-libs but couldn’t stop him and his receivers from pulling off the street-ball plays.
“I guess we weren’t getting enough pressure,” Romero said. “But we were watching film all week and we knew their receivers would start on one side (of the field) and float over to the other side. We just didn’t execute.”
San Benito coach Chris Cameron said he was most impressed with Van Meter’s ability to turn a broken play into positive yardage.
“I thought he played an outstanding game,” Cameron said. “We just couldn’t contain him.”
After the game, with his team devastated by the loss, it was left to Cameron and his staff to put the season in perspective.
“In 10 years here, this was probably the most enjoyable season,” Cameron told his team after the game. “We don’t have any big-name stars here. It was (everyone) working their (butts) off every week. I’m extremely proud of all of you.”
Later, Cameron was just as circumspect, “If someone had told me (last summer) that this team would be playing on a Friday night for a championship, I would have said anything’s possible. We played some great games this year. We just didn’t have one more in us and they did. We have way too many red (second-place) trophies and not enough blue ones. I was hoping to balance it out this year.”
